ABSTRACT
I also wanted to know whether this situation was idiosyncratic to the Sikhs, or, for that matter, to India. In the 1980s violent movements of religious activism were relatively infrequent phenomena. This was prior to the rise of Hamas in the intifada of the Palestinian movement, and only the Islamic revolution in Iran bore witness to a new kind of virulent anti-modern religious politics that in time would cast its shadow over much of the globe. At that time, in the 1980s, I wanted to know whether the characteristics of the Punjab situation were unique to India, or whether there were patterns that were replicated in other forms of religious politics emerging around the world.
